Indian Blu-rays - Problems and workarounds

[rajkapoor]

prepres wrote (from Bhaag Milkha Bhaag thread)
“I may buy this version as I didn't buy Shame-aroo version because of watermark. Even I haven't any Shame-aroo title except Sarfarosh (just to check their old title Blu-ray). If they re-release all titles without watermark, I WILL buy their mostly good titles like Ishqiya, Queen, Madras Cafe, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Kahaani, The Dirty Picture, Baghban etc.”

When I saw the above statement, I decided to share my tricks and workarounds to solve the problems of Indian Blu-rays. These are my personal ways of dealings with these issues. These are not for everyone. I’ll like to hear from other members if they have any tips or tricks to share.
I need to explain a little bit about my HT first. It’s a 132” screen projector based 7.2 system. Oppo BDP-103D is at its heart. Everything (dish, cable, Apple TV, Fire TV etc) is connected through a HDMI (5/1) switch to Oppo. Oppo’s 1st HDMI output is connected to the projector while the 2nd output is connected to the receiver. Two hard drives (5 and 4 TBs) are connected to two usb ports of Oppo. All the BDs/DVDs are backed up as mkv files on these drives. The whole system is controlled by a Harmony Ultimate One remote. Info and Green buttons on the remote are set to Oppos Info and Zoom.

Watermarks: I hate WMs as much as prepres does. The only reason I can think of having WMs is that these manufacturers are superstitious. When I didn’t have my Oppo blu-ray player, I’ll stick a black piece of paper with a 2-sided tape on the WM. Now I use Oppo’s zoom feature to get rid of or move it. It doesn’t change the original OAR. You lose picture on sides. Fit is my preferable mode. In this mode Shame-aroo moves to the bottom. Most of the movies I have already seen in theaters so now I can watch the songs this way. Here are some shots:

QN_01.jpg

QN_02.jpg

And you prepres, you should buy these Shame-aroo’s BDs just for audio. Queen is 7.1. I turn off the projector and just listen to the songs.

Songs: Only songs are a repeat value for me on these disks. But those are spread on a number of chapters. As I’m not using the actual disks, it makes it very hard for me to jump to songs. First I used to extract them. But now I create new chapters on the mkv files, each one starting with a song. This way I can jump between the songs using chapter buttons on the remote.

Poor Video: There are not too many of them. It usually applies to DVDs/Dish non-hd channels. I can watch them at 50% zoom.

General: I store my disks in plastic sleeves in boxes and in chronological order. Covers are scanned and saved as pictures on those connected drives.

[prepress]

^ Thanks for your inputs.
Anyway I was aware about it but it seems a kind of compromise to me as it crops the picture. I understand that the cropped part is not that important but still.
By the way, recently many websites had 50% off on Shemaroo BDs and now 25% is going on. God knows but my heart said may be it is because Shemaroo wants to re-release all the good titles again (without watermark) and this sale is for stock clearance

[nrD]

Personally I'd buy a high quality blu-ray with watermark for Rs.250 instead of the same one without watermark for Rs.1000

[Anurag1700]

@ rajkapoor

You said it right. these solutions are not for everyone and i am one of them.

Cropping is a strict no no for me. I'll never understand why shd anyone consider the cropped part unimportant. It is a part of director's original vision and is equally important as the central picture to me. One's subconscious is at play here. How important is the character /thing is in a given scene, in a given time at a given place is denoted by how the shot is framed. The audience gets a sense (very subtle but integral) of measuring these aspects correctly when the frame is complete.

Secondly, You ask any director/cinematographer whether a part of his frame was unimportant, i am pretty sure they ll reply saying tea cups on the table, or trees in the background, or the color of curtains in the corner, or even the colour of clouds in that particular weather had a meaning attached to the sentiments portrayed in the scene. Well, I know many people will not watch films this way but like i said i truly believe in the subconscious impact of everything in the frame and hence, to me thats a total insult to the art of cinema itself when anyone even thinks of watching a movie in cropped version.

All English HD channels in India show 2.35:1 movies in cropped 1.78:1 manner. People are happy that it fills up their TV screen. Not me. I prefer watching hindi movies in HD channels because at the least they dont do cropping.

Coming to problem of blu rays like shemaroo, well i will always show them the finger, irrespective of how important the movie title is for me. Lets hope and pray that they r doing something about clearing existing stocks and re-releasing without watermark. If shemaroo is reading this, i am hereby giving in writing that i will buy each one of their title instantly the day they are free of watermark.

And to quote nrD above, my view is quite opposite- Personally I'd happily buy a high quality blu-ray without watermark for Rs.1000 instead of the same one with watermark for free. Period.

[rajkapoor]

prepress

I hope you are right. It's not only Shame-aroo though, but others too like Eros on songs, T-series on their DVDs, BalaJi with floating watermarks and some other releasing Tamil and Telugu movies. Not all the movies come out on BRs. You still need to buy some DVDs. I keep sending e-mails to these guys. May be one day they'll realize their mistake. If Shemaroo does come out with un-watermarked BRs. I'll buy them again in a heartbeat.

nrD

The whole idea of a home theater is to watch the movie the same way as at a theater. Do they have watermarks in theaters? Quality is more important to me than money. Money is important too but everything is relative. It all depends on what one wants in his life. Some will download or watch a pirated movie free, some will rent a copy for a buck, some will buy a DVD and some will buy a Blu-ray. I'll rather buy a BR without a watermark.

[rajkapoor]

Anuraag1700

I don’t fully agree with you. Cropping is a no no – yes and no. For me, it’s a no no when I watch a movie for the first time. I want to watch the whole thing too. That’s why I watch most movies in theaters. Afterward it’s my choice. At my HT, I’m the director. I want to watch it the way I enjoy it most. My screen height is almost 6 feet. By filling it without changing the OAR, it turns into a life size show like I’m at a broadway. What about changing colors, tone, brightness etc on my projector? How about the audio? Can I change the volume, base or treble? Is everything fixed? No. Director did his part or did he? What about all the lousy movies they make? So I cannot fast forward it because he wants me to watch 20 minutes of a fight scene where a guy shot and stabbed is fighting 20 peoples and winning too. I think you are taking it too seriously. The whole idea is to enjoy your movies. That’s what I do.

Dish Network has only a few HD channels here in the USA. I don’t watch TV that much anyway.

For a long time, I didn’t buy Shemaroo’s DVDs or BRs. But you have to consider your spouse too.

Let’s us hope that someday the Indian companies will follow the American system. A date will be announced and the perfect BRs will be available on that day. All the gems of Indian cinema will be released in superb quality too. I must be dreaming.

[Anurag1700]

@rajkapoor
I am glad you disagree. What are we as humans and what are movies as qualitative aspects if any two opinions are identical

Originally Posted by rajkapoor

Anuraag1700
Is everything fixed? No. Director did his part or did he? What about all the lousy movies they make? So I cannot fast forward it because he wants me to watch 20 minutes of a fight scene where a guy shot and stabbed is fighting 20 peoples and winning too. I think you are taking it too seriously. The whole idea is to enjoy your movies. That’s what I do.

Yes you nailed it right. I do consider everything fixed, i genuinely do not believe in changing anything which includes forwarding uninteresting parts on repeat watch. When I treat them that way, my opinion about the film stays the same. I dont want to give credit to the director in my mind just because i am watching parts independently or watching few parts in a customized way. It was supposed to look right in its original form, length, EQ and IQ and the director has failed if it doesnt feel so for the whole product. And Yes I do take them that seriously. But it doesnt mean i do not enjoy. It simply means that the definition of entertainment differs for you and me thats all.

Lets hope our dreams and wishes of seeing classics in perfect BDs come true one day. Cheers !

[Anurag1700]

Originally Posted by rajkapoor

Anuraag1700

My screen height is almost 6 feet. By filling it without changing the OAR, it turns into a life size show like I’m at a broadway.

I may be interpretting this wrongly but help me understand something - when u keep saying u r not changing OAR it confuses me. Original image was 2.35:1 AR. You zoomed /cropped it in to make it 1.78:1 AR which fills up your 16:9 screen. How is that same OAR ?

Secondly If your height of screen is higher than the original image, its the mistake of screen not the movie image. In my opinion, the way i see this issue, you are penalising the movie for limitations in your display. What you really should be doing is install a CIH screen in 2.35:1 ratio. Project the image on that and fill up the screen. That in my opinion will be truly 'OAR unchanged'.

[rajkapoor]

Anurag1700

What I mean is that there is no distortion. Netflix movies fill up the screen without any zooming on my part. Screen is also used for watching SD and HD TV channels. HD channels fill up the screen while SD channels leave sides. Movies come in different ratios. My blu-ray player is zooming the image to my screen height and cropping the sides to fill my screen but without any distortion. There is a stretch mode too which fills the screen without cropping but with distortion. Technically you may be right. No screen size is going to be good for all movies. Even at the theaters they adjust the screen before the movie starts.

[nitin]

zooming is not a good answer IMHO. But each to his own.

In terms of fixing problems, some indian blu rays (and some asian movie blu rays from the UK too) have their color space set incorrectly. To fix this, if you have a player or tv that can change color space input, set it to RGB color space.

Discs off the top of my head that have this issue are : Love Aaj Kal, Bachna Ae Haseeno, Saheb Biwi and Gangster 2. There are many more.

[Anurag1700]

Originally Posted by nitin

Discs off the top of my head that have this issue are : Love Aaj Kal, Bachna Ae Haseeno, Saheb Biwi and Gangster 2. There are many more.

For me its Veer Zaara (1st half) and English Vinglish BRs. They have raised black levels and can be easily corrected by changing color space.

[nitin]

yeah Veer Zaara is weird, because 2nd half has the right colour space. Not sure how somebody working on that disc missed the big discrepancy in the two halves.

[rajkapoor]

nitin & Anurag1700

Thanks for the tip! I’m also going to try it on some of the Yash Raj’s latest titles.

[nitin]

which one's in particular?

[rajkapoor]

Daawat-e-Ishq and Kill/Dill. I just tried RGB with DeI. It didn’t do anything. It made it overly pinkish. I think the color specs are fine. I was not just happy with its colors. As I have seen most of the movies in theaters, my mind compares blu-rays with what I had seen there. I changed color temp. to cool and gamma mode to cinema on my projector. That made some difference. I’m going to play some more with its settings. So how do you tell which BRs have wrong color specs? I’m also going to check the ones you mentioned before.

[nitin]

the wrong colour space basically makes blacks look 'milky' (ie grayish) and other colors look washed out and details looks soft.

As an example see the screenshots of Blind Woman's curse and Lady Snowblood on this site (UK releases of japanese movies). They are obviously older movies shot on different film stock to recent movies but the issues with milky blacks and washed out colour should still be noticeable.

I dont have Daawat-E-Ishq or Kill Dil unfortunately so cant comment on those. I will be getting Kill Dil next week though so can post back then once I have had the chance to check it out.

The others I mentioned definitely have wrong colour space set and the RGB input change does work for them. With RGB input, I dont know what options you get on your player/tv but you want to set it to 'RGB PC' not 'RGB Video'.

The other thing to bear in mind re theatrical colour, a lot of indian theatres do not seem to have their projectors set up right unfortunately. I have only seen a few movies in India (since I live in Australia) but each time, the gamma seems to have been off.

[rajkapoor]

Thank you very much! I looked at the Lady Snowblood screenshots. Daawat-e-Ishq and Kill/Dill definitely don’t have any wrong color space problem. Both are quite good, just not as good as I was hoping them to be. I have a projector. I did mention it in my post. You just missed it. If you want to know about my setup, please read the 2nd paragraph of very first post. I did set the projector to “RGB PC”.

I live in the USA. The movie theaters here are quite good. Thanks again for your input.

[nitin]

sorry not sure how I missed that you were the first poster

[nitin]

I flicked through some of the recent hindi blus I got. Can confirm Kill/Dil does not have any colour space issues. But Dedh Ishqiya does.